'The Hike' - Prelude - Last Night I Had a Dream

Prelude:

Last night, or I should say in the morning, I had an incredible dream that I was able to remember down to the last detail, and I want to share it with you. It was much longer than 3-4 seconds, and you'll understand that after hearing the whole story. The dream pointed out some interesting things to me that I think are worth mentioning and acknowledging, as well as discussing.

Before this dream, I had another quick one, which served as an insult or a wake-up call. Literally, after the guy in my dream told me that I am too fat to date him, I woke up. I will think about it for at least a week. When I was in Bulgaria the other week and I was coming down from the mountain to go back to Sofia so I could catch the flight to Dortmund, I thought about these extra kilos that I gained and the struggle to take them down. I decided I will call the problem 'Das Problem' because everything sounds heavy in German, just as I am right now. You should have seen me, laughing alone at that joke in the middle of nowhere.

So yeah, that guy in my dream told me that I am fatter, I woke up, and I went back to sleep again. Next thing I knew, I was on a train with normal tires that was suspiciously bumpy on my way to the mountain. The mountain was after Vratca (a city in Bulgaria), but it was Stara Planina (Balkan Mountain, a mountain that does exist elsewhere in reality), just like in any casual dream, things switch up to help the story continue.

                          This is Rila, but Stara Planina looked like that

This train had several problems while I was riding on the back of the flat wagon with some people whose faces I can't recall, but somehow they were my friends or acquaintances. After I heard that we would go with the train through the steep part of the mountain, I turned around and saw the mountain, which from afar looked like Stara Planina from Dobrila to peak Botev. Every dream that I have had in the last year includes a mountain as the final destination. In my dream, the mountains feel like the right choice of a place to go, and I struggle to get there, but my determination is not unnoticed.

I really feel like at this point, with so many dreams about it, I just miss the mountain and the feeling I get when I am there, hiking alone or with my partner. Whenever I am on the top of the mountain, I get this rush of life that is probably lacking when I am down in the city. So I am pinning that to the list of things I should consider, and I am continuing with my dream; it gets crazy right away.

                  This is the flat wagon from my dream

The train with tires breaks right in the city, and I jump from the flat wagon and go to see a bridge. Right there, I see a couple. This couple is old, and they are rafting. The river is super small, and the boat fits exactly enough, but it's obvious that with these rocks, it's not enough. The next thing I see is the grandma thrown out of the boat and hitting one of the rocks, the boat doing a Titanic right on the old guy. For a second, it seemed like he is going to drown under the boat, but the old lady saved him at the last moment. It all happened so quickly, far away but close, like in a dream, that I decided to call the police. I thought for a moment is it 911, but then I entered 112. The woman on the phone told me that there is no police anymore. After that, I forgot about the couple, and all of a sudden, I had a BMX bike with very moving and unreliable handlebars.

I heard that a bus is provided as a substitute for the train, and I have to go to the bus station. A couple of people who looked like they were typical Bulgarian alcoholics told me that I have 10 minutes, and with my agile bike, I went to look for the station. How is this dream 3 seconds? As soon as I tried to get on the main street, I hit a woman with a bike, no one was hurt, but I apologized like three times for my slow reactions, and she and her boyfriend were so friendly and understandable that they let it slide. Finally, after I went on a red light with other cars, I found the bus station with all the people from the train. For a second, there was a wide shot of all the people in front of the bus, just like from the movie 'Society of the Snow' right before the plane crashed. I decided that I will leave my bike, and if I came back, if it's there, it's there. I am not a material person, and I woke up.

After sharing this dream with my partner, I decided that it was worth telling. One of the realizations I had is that I need to be closer to the mountain, if not on it, to experience the vitality it provides. Another realization is that I am fat, so now I have to work on Das Problem.

This morning, we discussed how the brain works and how it's possible to come up with so many parts of one story so quickly. We joked that it's like loading hundreds of items like a computer right before we wake up, and that's why we get the dreams that I experience. After writing about that dream, I realized that I am most creative and passionate with my writing in the morning. I am a morning person, and after the morning, I am no person, so I have to take advantage of the situation when I manage to wake up early.

Iliya Badev

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